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Creating the change we need: It all starts with us

The alarm goes off early in the morning. Getting dressed and eating breakfast are the last preparations before the big event. For the past month, we have prepared for this day: September 26, 2017. National Voter Registration Day. We’ve engaged in hours of trainings, countless exchange of emails, and tireless recruitment of other student leaders for this very important day.

This wonderful day brought students together to work side-by-side across the state of Minnesota, all caring about one thing: our future. We are going to change the trend of students not voting and increase student voter turnout in Minnesota. As Minnesotans, we have always been known for having the highest voter turnout at the polls in the nation, but that’s not good enough. As a millennial, I know my peers have a bad reputation for not showing up in the booth on Election Day. We students are trying to address this change and be proactive to solve this problem, because we are sick and tired of paying the third highest tuition and fees in the country, and we need our elected officials to hear us!

So, the results are in. On National Voter Registration Day, student leaders at the two-year community and technical colleges in Minnesota registered over 1,300 students in one day. It was an amazing success! Our goal was to reach 1,000 voter registrations and we flew right through that to over 1,300! We want to give a huge thank you to all those students that were on the ground, registering voters; we couldn’t have done it without you. We, as student leaders, are creating the change we want to see in our state.